the juggler's motions appeared with the soup, and
made exactly the same gestures when he uncovered the tureen as Robert
Houdin would have made, and one was surprised not to see a bunch of
flowers or a live rabbit fly out. But no! it was simply soup, and the
guests attacked it vigorously and in silence. After the Rhine wine all
tongues were unloosened, and as soon as they had eaten the Normandy
sole-oh! what glorious appetites at twenty years of age!--the five young
men all talked at once. What a racket! Exclamations crossed one
another like rockets. Gustave, forcing his weak voice, boasted of the
performances of a "stepper" that he had tried that morning in the Allee
des Cavaliers. He would have been much better off had he stayed in his
bed and taken cod-liver oil. Maurice called out to the boy to uncork
the Chateau-Leoville. Amedee, having spoken of his drama to the comedian
Gorju, called Jocquelet, that person, speaking in his bugle-like voice
that came through his bugle-shaped nose, set himself up at once as a man
of experience, giving his advice, and quoting, with admiration, Talma's
famous speech to a dramatic poet: "Above all, no fine verses!" Arthur
Papillon, who was destined for the courts, thought it an excellent time
to lord it over the tumult of the assembly himself, and bleated out
a speech of Jules Favre that he had heard the night before in the
legislative assembly.

The timid Amedee was defeated at the start in this melee of
conversation. Maurice also kept silent, with a slightly disdainful smile
under his golden moustache, and an attack of coughing soon disabled
Gustave. Alone, like two ships in line who let out, turn by turn, their
volleys, the lawyer and the actor continued their cannonading. Arthur
Papillon, who belonged to the Liberal opposition and wished that
the Imperial government should come around to "a pacific and regular
movement of parliamentary institutions," was listened to for a time, and
explained, in a clear, full voice the last article in the 'Courrier du
Dimanche'. But, bursting out in his terrible voice, which seemed like
all of Gideon's trumpets blowing at once, the comedian took up the
offensive, and victoriously declared a hundred foolish things--saying,
for example, that the part of Alceste should be made a comic one;
making fun of Shakespeare and Hugo, exalting Scribe, and in spite of
his profile and hooked nose, which should have opened the doors of the
Theatre-Francais and giv